Archive for the ‘BIOTECHNOLOGY’ Category

“Looking to take advantage of sperm’s awesome swimming ability, researchers have cyborg-ized bull semen by positioning them inside tiny metal cylinders that can be steered with magnets. This means we now have a way to control a cell’s direction inside the body — a breakthrough that could lead to efficient microscopic robots.

With the mobility aspect taken care of, the researchers were able to orient the microtubes using external magnetic fields. The process works similarly to how a compass needle aligns with Earth’s magnetic field. …biohybrid micro-robots are harmless to the human body, they provide their own power, and they can swim through viscous liquids”

Like this:

“A team of scientists in South Korea have now developed the most precise method ever used to insert DNA into cells. The method combines two high-tech laboratory techniques and allows the researchers to precisely poke holes on the surface of a single cell with a high-powered “femtosecond” laser and then gently tug a piece of DNA through it using “optical tweezers,” which draw on the electromagnetic field of another laser. The team’s approach, which is a breakthrough in precision and control at the single-cell level, was published today in the Optical Society’s (OSA) open-access journal Biomedical Optics Express.”

Like this:

“For the first time, researchers have implanted an electrode that can record neural activity while it simultaneously delivers electric current to the brain.

Minneapolis-based medical device company Medtronic developed the device, which can also adjust its electrical output in response to the changing conditions of the brain. This automated control could one day improve deep brain stimulation treatment and even enable doctors to use the device to treat more conditions, experts say.

..The patient trials that launched on Wednesday will test whether Medtronic’s new device can safely record electrical activity in a patient’s brains while also delivering electric currents. These tests will explore how patients’ brains respond to deep brain stimulation therapy. However, according to lab animal tests, the device is capable of not only sensing the electrical activity of the brain tissue it sits in but of also changing its output accordingly.”

“Researchers at MIT have, for the very first time, successfully accessed a biological power source that has been known to exist for several decades. That source is located in the inner ear’s cochlea where it provides sufficient current to power an electrochemical signal that originates in the vibration of the eardrum. That mechanical force is converted to a signal that is sent to and processed by our brain.

The cochlea serves as a natural battery chamber filled with ions. There have been ideas to tap this “battery”, but scientists did not have a feasible concept to actually do so previously.”

Like this:

“Bioengineers at Harvard University have created the first examples of cyborg tissue: Neurons, heart cells, muscle, and blood vessels that are interwoven by nanowires and transistors.

These cyborg tissues are half living cells, half electronics. As far as the cells are concerned, they’re just normal cells that behave normally — but the electronic side actually acts as a sensor network, allowing a computer to interface directly with the cells. In the case of cyborg heart tissue, the researchers have already used the embedded nanowires to measure the contractions (heart rate) of the cells.”